


Little Details

by kisahawklin



Series: Five Ingredient Fics [3]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Five Ingredient Fics, Gen, Grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-09
Updated: 2010-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 14:33:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kisahawklin/pseuds/kisahawklin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John finds out more than he wants to know as he packs up Elizabeth's plain cardboard box.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Details

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beachlass](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=beachlass).



John packs the last of Elizabeth's books into the plain cardboard box that holds the rest of her non-top secret belongings to be sent back to Earth. _Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park_... there's a full collection. It shouldn't surprise John, but it does. The little things always do, like Ford's collection of Beatles vinyl. He hopes he never has to find out the little things about the rest of his team, or pack their plain cardboard boxes. He knows too much about Rodney's expected funeral arrangements already. Having to find out he has a stash of Picasso lithographs or collection of coffee table books about China would be too much.

His comm clicks twice; Rodney's finally learned not to push John when he doesn't want to answer. John clicks his comm on. "Yeah?"

_"I know you're, um, busy,"_ Rodney says, relatively tactfully, _"but I thought you might need something to take your mind off... things."_

John snorts into the comm. It's as close to circumspect as Rodney is likely to get. "All right, I'm nearly done here."

_"Great, video golf room in half an hour."_

The comm clicks off and John sighs, putting the cover on the box and writing Elizabeth's name on the side and the date. He's not in the mood for video golf, but Rodney's company is usually worth it.

His thoughts are on Elizabeth's sacrifice, the time they needed to get the ZPM and hack the replicators' code to make them finally, finally go after the Wraith… they bought an unwilling ally in their war against the Wraith with their leader's life. He hopes it's worth it. Somehow, he doubts it will ever be.

~~~

 

"Hey," Rodney says when John shows up. He's just finished setting up the game. He takes one look at John's face and shuts the game down. "Let's head down to the pier," he says, and John is so relieved that Rodney understands, he smiles a little, tightly.

"Beer?" Rodney asks, and that's a gift too; Rodney doesn't generally drink beer, but he'll nurse one along while John finishes the six pack.

"Nah," John says, steering them away from the quarters and toward the pier. "There's not enough beer in the world."

"Wait," Rodney says, putting an arm across John's chest to stop their forward motion. "I've got something." He takes off at a jog for his quarters and comes back a couple of minutes later with a bottle of chocolate liqueur.

"Are you kidding?" John says, laughing at the fat brown bottle.

"Jeannie sent it to me," Rodney explains. "I think it was supposed to be a joke, but it's actually pretty tasty."

They sit on the pier, taking swigs straight from the bottle, and they're both barely able to stand after a couple of hours. John doesn't really talk, and Rodney does, but not about anything important. At one point he takes out a pen and starts an equation on the leg of John's pants.

"What's that?" John asks, because it contains symbols he's never seen before, but that seem somehow familiar.

"I dream about this," Rodney says softly. "It's leftover from almost ascending. I write down what I can remember but it never makes any sense. I wish I'd shown it to Elizabeth."

Later, after John's slept off the drunk and the hangover and some of the apathy he always feels after taking care of the details of someone they've lost, John folds up the pants with Rodney's ascension equation and puts them in the box with Elizabeth's personal items. Maybe someday she can explain it to both of them.

**Author's Note:**

> For [beachlass](http://beachlass.livejournal.com/), who [requested Jane Austen, Wraith, John's pants, golf, and chocolate](http://kisa-hawklin.livejournal.com/361045.html?thread=3236437#t3236437) for [Five Ingredient Fics](http://kate.dreamwidth.org/346849.html).


End file.
